"These days, the headlines are seemingly full of stories of sports-related marriage infidelity... The why is simple. Money plus fame plus opportunity can equal infidelity. But it also leads to harsher questions when the scandals become so public. How could the wives not know? Why do they stay? How could the cheaters be so reckless?"

Why does it happen? Because, like celebrities, athletes are worshiped. There's also the code:.

"Never is that more pronounced than when wives travel on the road. They know their husbands' careers and earnings are foremost, so even if a wife sees a married teammate with another woman, she is expected to remain silent and keep that information to herself -- even if she is close to that teammate's wife. To do otherwise would break the code and could seriously harm the team, a sin that could disrupt the husband's career."

Sometimes it's a wife who wants very badly for an illusion to be true. Tisha DeShields, whose ex-husband played major-league baseball and cheated on her, said:

"This is a man that you love. Why would you not want to believe him? It's kind of like surviving. We'll put up our own defense mechanisms to protect our heart. We don't want to deal with it; we don't want to admit that our marriage is failing. We believe in the fairy tale; we believe in the knight in shining armor who comes and rescues you and you live happily ever after. I hate to tell people, but that's bulls---."